Forgotten

I always like to joke around with people that Father's Day is the "Forgotten Holiday". Of course there's a shred of truth to my rumination, although I try not to dwell on it too much. Mother's Day is this grand affair, eclipsed (and narrowly at that) only by Christmas. Father's have to share the marquis with Grads as in "Get your gifts for Grads and Dads". Forget mother's day and you may not live to tell about it. You will never hear the end of it if you are lucky. More likely, you'll be banished to the Kingdom of Silent Treatment, where, if there were indeed such a kingdom, jilted Mom would not be its Ice Princess but its Cold Blooded Queen. Forget Father's Day? Hey, has anyone seen the remote control? There's no big consequence for missing Father's Day.

My Father's Day started early and ended late. In typical Dad fashion, it was busy all day long filled with everyone else's activities. There was no ceremonial parade. There was no pageantry. There was no formal gift presentation. Apparently, my kids had hidden my gift behind the couch sometime yesterday and forgot all about it until almost 4pm today when they mentioned rather nonchalantly, "Hey Dad..um..don't forget to look behind the couch for your gift later on...," not even looking up from their Nintendo DS's. My daughter had a 9am basketball game, and another at 2:15pm. In between we went to breakfast. Actually, this was our second breakfast, but the first that we had a chance to relax and enjoy. I couldn't very well send her out to play without anything in her stomach so I was up at 7am making some eggs to serve with the homemade buttermilk biscuits that I made yesterday. There weren't enough biscuits left, so I had oatmeal. For the second breakfast, we dined at Stacks in Redwood City, not far from the gym where she was playing. Right after we ordered my daughter proclaimed rather proudly, "This is our treat!"

"Really?!!" I said excitedly and pleasantly surprised."You have money?"

"Well..um..not exactly...," she started to backpedal. "It's your Father's Day Breakfast...from us...but...uh...you'll pay."

You know that face that the highway patrol officer makes just after you finish your lame excuse about having swerved suddenly into the carpool lane and being forced to remain there for an extended period because the cars in the middle lane would not let you merge back in? He is neither sympathetic nor amused. Well, maybe slightly amused but only inwardly. I gave her that look. We ate and hustled back to the gym for the second game and I even bought her a t-shirt from one of the vendors. After her game, I had to go to the office to work on a project that seems to be never ending. Working in my office on a Sunday is bad enough. Working there on Father's Day ought to be illegal.

I missed Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the Celtics and Lakers. I caught the radio broadcast of the 4th quarter as I lamented about how I have missed the majority of games 1, 4, and 5. Hopefully I'll see game 6 from my hotel room in Ontario, Canada as I'll have the Eastern Time Zone working on my behalf. I'm nodding off now so I had better get some sleep.

Oh, I almost forgot. The little surprise behind the couch was really nice. Accompanying the 2 linen shirts that they picked out for me was a nice picture painted by my son and a poem also penned by him labeling me as not only a good pitcher and great basketball player, but the coolest and best Dad ever. That was a nice way to end the day.